“Don’t mention it. My mom likes to feed people,” I say.
Anna scratches her head as she frowns at the inside of the fridge, looking slightly panicked. “You might have to take a box back with you, Quan. I don’t think we have room for all of this—”
“What?” Priscilla interjects. “We have room. There’s also the extra fridge in the garage and that big freezer.”
“Oh right. I forgot,” Anna says, and her voice sounds so different that the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. It’s high-pitched and hesitant, extremely soft. Not herself. “Should I put most of this out there, then?”
“No,” Priscilla decides. “Put as much as you can in here. I think Mom will like it.”
“Okay,” Anna says in that same unnaturally young voice, smiling like the idea of refrigerating things is really exciting.
I glance back and forth between the sisters to see if Priscilla notices Anna’s dramatic change. She doesn’t seem to.
“You should freeze some of the wontons. There are a lot. The chicken is best if you eat it today with noodles,” I suggest, acting like my girlfriend didn’t just age back twenty years. “Did you eat yet? I can show you how to put it all together.”
Priscilla’s face brightens with something that looks like glee. “I would love some—” She stiffens and glances over her shoulder toward a part of the house I haven’t seen, like she’s heard something no one else detected. “I worry when he coughs like that after we feed him. We have to space things out more.” She grabs a bundle of fabric from the microwave, slams it shut, and races away.
“She has superhuman hearing now, like moms do. My dad is basically her baby,” Anna says, and her voice and demeanor are completely returned to normal. She’s the Anna I know again as she takes cartons out of the boxes and lines them up on the table with geometrical precision.
I give her a questioning look, and her expression turns confused.
“What? Do I have something on my face?” she asks, touching her cheek.
“No, I was just—did you …” I’m not sure what I’d achieve by pointing things out—she’s got enough on her plate—so I ask, “Should we heat up something for your sister and bring it in to her? Also, should I say hi to your dad?”
Anna shakes her head. “We don’t eat in there. That would be wrong, you know? Because he can’t. But if we get a bowl ready for her, she’ll come out and eat it real fast. That’s why we have that baby monitor.” She points to a small screen on one of the counters. The volume is off, but a grainy video feed shows Priscilla hovering over their dad, adjusting his pillows and things while he sleeps.
“I guess I shouldn’t say hi while he’s sleeping.”
“Yeah, when he’s awake is better,” she agrees. “But don’t be offended when he doesn’t respond. I’m not sure he’s aware of what’s happening most of the time. I’ve tried talking to him, showing him movies on YouTube, playing music. Nothing reaches him. Nothing that I do, anyway.” She lifts a shoulder and touches the bent corner of a foam container.
For a long moment, she seems lost in her thoughts, but she eventually blinks out of it, focuses on me, and smiles. “Let’s eat. I’m hungry, and this smells so good.”
I show her how to reheat things for maximal deliciousness. My mom gave me specific instructions: broil the fried chicken in the oven for five minutes so it stays crispy, reboil soup broth in a pot over the gas range, and microwave the egg noodles, wontons, and barbecue pork. When everything is hot, I put it together, fried chicken on top, and sprinkle chives and pickled jalape?os over each bowl. Anna runs to get her sister, and the three of us seat ourselves on the leather barstools at the outer granite island and eat while the baby monitor crackles, the volume now turned up to the max.
“This might be the best wonton noodle soup I’ve ever had,” Priscilla says as she somehow, astonishingly, empties her entire bowl. Even her chicken bones are picked clean.
“Thanks. I’ll tell my mom you said so,” I say. “She loves to cook and is constantly working on improving her recipes. You should see when she tries out a new restaurant. She orders one of everything and analyzes each bite.”
“An artist, then, like Anna,” Priscilla says, elbowing Anna in the side teasingly.
“I guess you could say that, but she doesn’t make anything fancy. If my mom’s cooking was music, it would be … folk music or, I don’t know, country music. Not like the stuff Anna plays. I could be wrong, though. I’ve never heard Anna play. I just assumed it was classical music.”